Sunday, 23 October 2016

Sadhu Amar Bharati

26. Sadhu Amar Bharati

We’ve all felt a bit of arm ache after carrying heavy bags of shopping over long distances, but maybe few of you will complain less about muscle burn after reading about Sadhu Amar Bharati, an Indian holy man who says that he has held his right hand aloft since 1973.

This means that his hand has been held in the air for an incredible forty-three years.

After being held aloft for so long, his hand has turned into a scrap of skin and bone - and is completely useless.

Despite this, it Shiva worshippers have turned it into a symbol of discipline and devotion.

Until the start of the seventies, Sadhu Amar Bharati was just a middle-class Indian who lived a regular life like everyone else.

He had all the usual things: A wife, a home, a steady job.

He even had three children.

But all of this paled into insignificance when one day he woke up and decided he needed to leave it all behind to dedicate his life to Shiva, a Hindu god.

From then on, he wandered the roads of India, wearing nothing but simple clothes and carrying only a metal trident.

In 1973, after three years of wandering, Sadhu Amar Bharati decided he still had too many connections to the luxuries of modern life and decided he needed to make some sort of sacrifice.

That sacrifice was to raise his right arm - and keep it held aloft.

43 years on, Sadhu Amar Bharati is still dedicated to serving his god, and his right arm is still held in the air.

But even if he wanted to lower it and use it again, he can’t. It’s become completely useless.

Observers believe he rose his right arm in protest against all the destruction and chaos in the world, but he maintains that he did it as a symbol that he was ready to renounce his earthly possessions and serve his god.